of a meditative and
pious life, and mistrust of the world and its perilous pleasures,
harmonized with the shy and melancholy timidity of his nature. Human
beings, especially women, inspired him with secret aversion, which was
increased by consciousness of his awkwardness and remissness whenever he
found himself in the society of women or young girls.

The beauties of nature did not affect him; the flowers in the
springtime, the glories of the summer sun, the rich coloring of autumn
skies, having no connection in his mind with any joyous recollection,
left him cold and unmoved; he even professed an almost hostile
indifference to such purely material sights as disturbing and dangerous
to the inner life. He lived within himself and could not see beyond.

His mind, imbued with a mystic idealism, delighted itself in solitary
reading or in meditations in the house of prayer. The only emotion he
ever betrayed was caused by the organ music accompanying the hymnal
plain-song, and by the pomp of religious ceremony.

At the age of eighteen, he left the St. Hilaire college in order to
prepare his baccalaureate, and his father, becoming alarmed at his
increasing moodiness and mysticism, endeavored to infuse into him the
tastes and habits of a man of the world by introducing him into the
society of his equals in the town where he lived; but the twig was
already bent, and the young man yielded with bad grace to the change of
regime; the amusements they offered were either wearisome or repugnant
to him. He would wander aimlessly through the salons where they were
playing whist, where the ladies played show pieces at the piano, and
where they spoke a language he did not understand. He was quite aware
of his worldly inaptitude, and that he was considered awkward, dull, and
ill-tempered, and the knowledge of this fact paralyzed and frightened
him still more. He could not disguise his feeling of ennui sufficiently
to prevent the provincial circles from being greatly offended; they
declared unanimously that young de Buxieres was a bear, and decided to
leave him alone. The death of his father, which happened just as the
youth was beginning his official cares, put a sudden end to all this
constraint. He took advantage of his season of mourning to resume his
old ways; and returned with a sigh of relief to his solitude, his books,
and his meditations. According to the promise of the Imitation, he found
unspeakable joys in his retirement; he r